I Wasn’t a Problem Child. I Was a Powerhouse Unplugged.

I’ve lived with ADHD my whole life—but didn’t know it until well into adulthood.

Before that? I was the girl who “talked too much,” “couldn’t sit still,” and “never finished what she started.” The class clown. The blurter. The storm with no forecast. I wasn’t trying to get attention—I just couldn’t not say what was spinning in my head. I wasn’t reckless—I was rapid fire. My mind was moving faster than my mouth could catch up, and nobody gave me the translator.

When the System Doesn’t Fit

School felt like swimming through molasses with a rocket strapped to my back. I cared, deeply—but I couldn’t prove it in the ways I was “supposed to.” Emotions? Big. Words for those emotions? Not always there. Structure? Needed, but missing. And yet, nobody ever asked why I couldn’t sit still. They just told me to sit down.

It wasn’t until I hit my late 20s—while drowning in a beige, box-shaped desk job selling corrugated cardboard (yes, that’s a thing)—that it hit me like a caffeine crash. I was taking “bathroom breaks” just to breathe. Meetings felt like mental quicksand. I was speaking in circles, forgetting mid-sentence what I was even saying. My energy wasn’t leading—it was leaking.

The Diagnosis, The Delay, and the Damn Medication

Getting diagnosed? That took time. Medication? A whole damn scavenger hunt. One dose made me a zombie, the next made me forget my own name. Sometimes I forgot the meds that were supposed to help me remember the meds. ADHD irony is real, folks.

But I finally found a rhythm. For a while, the structure helped. The job, the schedule, the system—it held me. Until it didn’t.

From Uniform to Unfiltered

Leaving that world behind to chase a degree in psychology—and then a master’s—ripped away the structure I’d been clinging to. No schedule, no boss, no built-in guardrails. I unraveled. But this time, I saw the spiral. I watched it. I didn’t fear it.

Because this time, it wasn’t regression. It was redirection.

I wasn’t falling apart—I was falling into me. The creative. The rebel. The founder of a brand that celebrates everything I was once told to silence.

My ADHD Is Not a Deficit. It’s My Design.

This brain of mine? It’s messy. Loud. Nonlinear. It’s lightning in a mason jar. But it’s also the reason Yonni exists—a brand built on radical self-expression, soft power, and the beauty of being too much in a world that wants us to shrink.

ADHD taught me to stop apologizing for how I process. For how I create. For how I am.

It’s not a disorder. It’s a design feature.

So if you’ve ever been called extra, scattered, or “too”—I see you. You’re not broken. You’re a live wire. A matchstick waiting to spark.

And baby, I say let it burn.

— Yonni 🔥